Title

Author

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Supervisor

Dr. L. J. Brown

Abstract

In the automobile industry, Resistance Spot Welding (RSW) is widely used for its low cost, high speed, simple mechanism and applicability for automation. RSW has become the predominant means of auto body assembly, resulting in two to six thousands spot welds performed on each manufactured car. In the North American automobile industry there are approximately 100 billion spot welds, which are done every year.

RSW is the joining of two or more metal parts together in a localized area by resistive heating and pressure. Small Scale RSW (SSRSW) is commonly used for medical devices and electronic components, because the welded parts are thinner and smaller compared to common RSW applications, such as automotive applications.

According to a study of Edison Welding Institute, 20% of the welding quality issues are the weld schedule or power supply related. Therefore, to contribute to weld quality improvement, the study of different weld schedules or power supplies and control schemes needs to be improved by doing further studies in this area. Thus a novel power supply, which can provide a testing bench for these studies, was designed and developed in 2005 by L. J. Brown and J. Lin. This research study will focus on studying and improving weld power supplies, weld schedules and control modes. One of the goals for this research is to improve the consistency of weld nugget size and strength by using different control parameters, which will be weighted geometric averages of voltage and current. These control parameters are fed back to a Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controller that is designed to control the Direct Current (DC) power supply for the RSW to come up with the best control parameters that will improve the consistency of the RSW spot welds.

Another goal for this research is it to further develop the existing DC power supply that was designed for SSRSW by L. J. Brown, to include tip voltage measurements, and Large Scale Resistance Spot Welding (LSRSW). This goal will lead to build additional weld modules to construct a 6000A welder in the future.